Help Wanted
by Mad Steph
Summary: Post season 3 finally, the ducklings are gone, House is left alone to solve a case, that reveals harder than what it seemed.Characters : House, Cuddy, Wilson and characters of my own creation.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Help Wanted  
**Rating: **PG  
**Disclaimer: **I do not own House MD  
**Summary:** The ducklings are gone, House is left alone to solve a case that is trickier than what he expected. Hinted Huddy, and original character.

* * *

"House!" 

He ignored the call, not interested by what Dr. Cuddy might have to say to him, he kept on going only a couple more steps and he was out the door. He knew, by the rapid sound of her heels clicking, that he would never make the escape in time, so he spun around nearly causing her to run into him.

"Dr. Cuddy …," he said. "How's your fever?"

"What fever ? I don't have a fever."

"Oh … With the amount of buttons that are undone from your shirt I thought you were very hot."

"Clever …" she said. "I have a case for you."

"I have no team. No team. No differential diagnosis. No case," he clarified.

"It's your own fault you have no team !"she stated.

"It's not my fault that no one is replying to that 'help wanted ad'," he said.

" I am not paying you to sit on your ass all day."

"But isn't that what you do? Sit on that oversized ass of yours all day long and pretend to push papers. No wonder sitting on something like that must be really comfy," he said.

"Caucasian male 26, complains about a sore throat, fever, lethargy and a cough," she said not giving into his game.

"He has a cold. Boring."

"Take a look at him. Exam room 1. Oh, and try and not offend him, he's the son of a very important donator. So whatever you do, don't be yourself," she said.

"So I have to baby-sit a daddy's boy just so can get money to …"

"Make up for your lack of profit," she cut him, before turning on her heels and happily clicking off to her office.

He grumbled. He hated meeting with patients, especially boring ones. That's what he missed the most about having a team, no one to do all the boring stuff.

He slowly dragged himself to the clinic picked up the file and headed into exam room 1.

He opened the door and found the room empty, nobody was patiently waiting for him on the table. He rolled his eyes, Cuddy must really be loosing it, he thought. He was about to leave when something caught the corner of his eye, a shoe.

His patient was lying on the ground; he was severely shaking and appeared to be unconscious. House popped his head through the exam room door and shouted towards the nurse "Get off your ass; I need some help in here."

He rested his cane against the wall, limped over to the patient and kneeled on his good leg to get a better look at the young man and be able to examine him.

He put his hand on the patient's forehead, he was burning, his fever was well over 100F, and they had to cool him down.

"Nurse! Ice packs and cooling blankets ! Come on, hurry up before all his neurones are boiled !" he said as he stood up grabbed his cane and marched out of the clinic.

* * *

"Boring cold, huh?" Lisa Cuddy asked as she stood in his office, he hadn't heard her come in, he was sitting in his desk chair and it was facing the other way.

"Everybody lies … So do symptoms," he replied.

"Any idea what's wrong with him ?"

"Not the faintest."

Just at that moment she saw his whiteboard through the glass wall in the next room, it displayed the symptoms :

SORE THROAT  
COUGH  
LETHARGY  
FEVER

She smiled, his famous board, all his genius ideas were born thanks to it.

"All right then I'll leave you to it," she sighed and left the room.

House stayed in his chair his eyes looking at nothing, lost in space, his mind was racing, searching through all his knowledge what could possibly be wrong with the young man.

* * *

Night had covered the sky over Princeton Plainsboro Hospital, when Dr. James Wilson decided to call it a night. He carefully switched the light off in his office and headed towards to elevators.

The light was on in House's office. So House-like, he thought, he left so damn early he didn't even notice the light was on. As a nature and environment lover Wilson lay his briefcase against the wall and walk over to the head of diagnosis office with the intention on simply switching the light off.

He nearly had a heart attack when he realized that House hadn't only forgot to switch the light off, he had also forgot to go home.

"It's 9pm, isn't it way past your bed time House?" he asked.

"Hard case," House stated.

"You've actually got a case? I thought that your 'I'm firing all my team' sprint was to get out of getting cases," Wilson said sarcastically.

"Technically I only fired the one, the others fled," he said. "And yeah, I do have a case, a bizarre one."

"What are the symptoms?"

House nodded in direction of the whiteboard in the next room.

"Sore throat, cough, lethargy, fever … I get it. It's a fake case, so Cuddy doesn't come here nagging you."

"And yet again you are wrong Jimmy. This isn't a 'fake' case. As a matter of fact it was the queen bee herself who assigned me to it."

"But it's a cold!" Wilson claimed rather loudly.

"No it isn't."

"Whatever you say House," Wilson put his left hand on his left hip and gave House a look of disbelief.

"The guy's in his twenties and he out cold, he's been out cold since this afternoon, if it was just a cold, he would still be able to stand up," House said seriously.

"Oh, and have you got an idea about what's wrong with him ?"

"Not really no," he sighed his eyes staring at the empty room that had been home to his diagnostic team.

"You miss them," Wilson said in nearly a whisper when he realized that his friend was gazing at the empty room.

"Wrong again. I miss having a team, I don't miss them," he clarified.

"Yeah right," Wilson said in a tone that oozed irony as he turned his back to House and started heading to the door.

"Teams are essential -- it allows you to blame someone else when you screw up."

Wilson rolled his eyes and said "Goodnight House."

* * *

House was still raking ideas and hunches out of his brain when his beeper went off at 11:30 pm.

-- EMERGENCY- PATIENT JOHNSON --.

Johnson, he thought, that's my case. He grabbed a hold of his cane and hobbled off to his patient room.

When he stepped out on the patient's room's floor he was greeted by screaming, he soon realized that it was from Martin Johnson's room. He stepped inside "What's happening ?" he demanded.

"Woke up all of a sudden and started screaming, for no good reason, so I paged you," the nurse answered.

"So he's screaming and it didn't cross your mind that he might be in pain ? Did you even attend Nurse School ?" he said sarcastically. He walked over to the bed and asked loudly "Where does it hurt ?"

"My thighs, my arms, my calves, all my muscles," the young man winced.

"Give him Morphine," he ordered, at that exact moment the nurse that had been helping him collapsed to the floor and started furiously trembling. For the second time that day, House called for help in the corridor.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the comments and constructive critics KrazieShadowNinja!!! I didn't really know how this site worked (I've only ever posted on forum) so pointing out all the mistakes helped me understand it better.  
MaeLace : All in good time, they'll be back eventually but not straight away.

**Disclaimer :** Still don't own House

* * *

Ring. Ring. Ring. 

Lisa Cuddy was brought back to the real life from her dream by the annoying sound of her phone ringing.

2:30 am.

Who in God's name would call at this time, she wondered.

"Whoever it is, it better be important," she said into the receiver.

"Why aren't you a ray of sunshine when you get up," said the ever so familiar voice.

"House?! What the hell it's the middle of the night. Somebody better be dying or I'm firing your ass first thing when I get to the hospital."

"Actually it's plural," he said.

"What are you going on about," she started to get annoyed.

"It's not one person that's dying it's several."

"What?!" she said in a tone of shock.

"You know your daddy's boy, whatever he's got, well 4 other people have it now, it's highly contagious."

"What do his labs say?"

"Nothing, I haven't got'em yet, I'll have them in thirteen minutes," he said.

"Okay, I'll be there in thirty," she hung up and rushed to her dressing room to throw some clothes on

* * *

. 

"Update, update," she demanded to House as she walked into the hospital lobby twenty nine minutes later.

"We're now up to six ill. Blood works revealed low white blood cells and platelet count, raised creatine, lymphopenia, and lacetate dehydrogenase. And he's developed severe myalgia," House replied.

"Myalgia could explain the raised creatine but what caused the muscle pains in the first place?" she asked as they made their way to the patient's floor.

"No idea, all I know is that is getting worse, and fast, and that we can't give him anymore morphine."

* * *

They were in front of the his room talking about what could be wrong with him before entering, they were dressed in scrubs and masks as to not be contaminated by whatever contagious illness he was carrying, he knew that they could hear him moaning, they were aware of the fact that he was in a great deal of pain. 

And then it happened, his breath shortened, as if his lungs were refusing to function, he couldn't breath. He gasped for air in vain, streching his arms in front of him and furiously waving them, desperately trying to grab the attention of two people standing in front of his room.

"… I'm not sure. If that was the problem he would also … Oh my god, he can't breathe!" Cuddy said as she rushed inside with House on her heels.

He called for help as she grabbed the intubation's tray and got him breathing again.

* * *

At 6am, House and Cuddy were in his office, they were up to 9 contaminated patients, and they still had no idea of what the problem was. 

"He's getting worse …" she said. "Do you have any idea what's wrong with him?"

He didn't answer.

"House," she said sternly. "If there was ever a moment your absolutely crazy theories would come in handy it's now !"

He remained silent, lost in thought.

"For god's sake House, do something ! Do your job, you're the top diagnostician !" her voice was getting higher and angrier. This is what he was good at, she thought, solving puzzle, why couldn't he just pull it together and make things better.

"I can't," he simply said.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

A short mousy haired nurse ran through the door.

"Yes Eva what's the matter?" Lisa Cuddy asked.

"We're up to 10 ill Dr Cuddy," she answered.

"God, I have to get the CDC here," she said picking up her phone, the little nurse ran out again.

"Center for Disease Control and prevention?" House laughed. "Since when are they of any use …"

"Well right now they'll be more useful than you, we've already got 10 ill, I don't want this hospital to become the nest of a pandemic, I want to nip this in the bud while we still can," she said.

"Doesn't matter anyway. You know you won't get anyone from there over here before next week."

"Wrong, I know someone over there, they'll come the minute I call," she told him as she starting dialling.

"Yeah, well as soon as you get off hold and you actually talk to a human being, which seeing what time it is, might take you a while," he said sarcastically.

"I'm not calling the head office, I'm calling my insider."

"Ex-lovers come in handy," he snarked.

"Yeah all of them except you. Now get out and find a theory, it's ringing."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Just under an hour later, House was curious to see how things were developing; he made his way to the dean of medicine's office.

He walked into the room without bothering to knock, he never did, why should he, especially in such a crisis situation

"I didn't cross any loons dressed as astronauts on the way down her, so I guess the CDC isn't here yet?" he asked her.

She was sitting behind her desk reading through a medical research book, most probably also trying to find the answer to their patient's mysterious condition.

"Any minute now," she replied.

"Mind if I wait with you," it wasn't a question, he took a seat, she looked up at him and tossed him a textbook while giving him a –you can stay here as long as your actually doing something useful- look, and she was good at giving those.

She couldn't stay focused on her reading anymore; a question had been burning her lips ever since he had left earlier.

"What did you mean by 'I can't' earlier on?" she ventured.

He kept on reading or at least pretending to read, he was ignoring her again, she knew she had hit a sensitive spot; this didn't happen often with House, it was her window to reach out to him, get to him while he was vulnerable. The rest of the time he was unreachable hiding behind a façade of irony and sarcasm that no one could pierce.

Her look soften, she was touched by this man, no matter how much crap he put her through each day, no matter how much he taunted her, insulted her, annoyed her, she knew deep down that he didn't mean to hurt her. She knew that that was his way of connecting with people, and she knew that the fact that she shared a special bond with Gregory House made her a privileged person.

She didn't get the answer to her question, because her office door was pushed violently open, and if she hadn't been starring at House she would have thought it was him.

"You summoned?" said the person who had just entered the office.

House had also been startled by this newcomer, she was rather tall in her late twenties, with a mountain of long shiny dark brown –nearly black- wavy hair, but the thing that shocked him the most was when Lisa Cuddy walked out from behind her desk to hug this stranger. Even though his eyes were popping out of his head, he managed to spit out a snark as he stood up and approached the girl, "So it wasn't one of your ex-toy boys you called it was one of your ex-lesbian lovers, you should have told me earlier that you swung both ways I may have given in to all that sexual harassment."

The girl stuck her hand out for him to shake it and said, "You must be Gregory House, I'm Alex Cuddy, I'm part of the CDC's doctors team."

Now this was an answer he was not expecting, he only managed to mutter, "You didn't say that you had any siblings."

"Actually Alex is my youngest sister, there's a middle one too," Lisa Cuddy said proudly.

"I thought there was an epidemic in your hospital," Alex enquired. "Don't you think I should get to it before it spreads to Timbuktu while were having small talk?" She didn't leave either of them time to answer before ordering, "Somebody needs to send the team to patient s' room so they can collect samples, I'd like you guys to brief me on the details of all this, and then we can start serious business and get this thing away from your hospital."

"Are you in charge or something?" House asked with a hint of suspicion in his tone, this girl was at least a couple of years younger than Cameron, how could she be in charge of anything.

"Yeah," she said in a serious tone. "Well until my boss gets here, he was in DC, he missed his flight and I'm co-directing with the rest of the team, so I guess technically I'm not really in charge," she added.

* * *

Half an hour later, House and Alex were sitting in the diagnostic room, he had briefed her and the room had gone silent for the past 30 seconds, they were both in deep thoughts. 

"Can I see the patient's labs?" Alex asked.

House slid them across the table to her, she picked them and studied them, "Low lymphocytes, raised lacetate and creatine …" She pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and dialled a number and held the device up to her ear "Terence, are you with the patient right now? Anything new? Can you get me a detailed platelet count and run me full labs, with all the possible counts and things you can find out by analysing blood know to mankind?" She hung up.

"Detailed labs?" House asked. "What more do you need?"

"I'm a believer of the every detail counts theory."

"I like that theory. What kind of doctor are you anyway? Some soft speciality like paediatrics?"

"Wrong. I have a double speciality in haematology and epidemiology," she answered.

"Nice," he said.

"Whatever …" she smiled. "Maybe we should try and do your job and find out what's wrong with this guy before he causes mass deaths, diagnosing people is what you get paid for, right ? And you are the best at what you do, right?" she said cheekily.

"What do you think it is?" he questioned. "After all you are an epidemiologist."

"I was thinking about …" she began.

And with that they started tossing around the symptoms and the possible conditions, House was in rare form.

It was at that moment that it struck him: he needed a team –or at least another human being- someone to bounce his theories off of, someone to make suggestions, because even though he knew he had the answers inside himself, he needed someone to help him push them out of the back of his mind, he would never admit this to anyone though, he had too much pride.

* * *

An hour later, Lisa Cuddy stepped through the door and asked "How's it going?" 

Before anyone could mutter an answer Alex's phone started ringing, she flicked it open before the second ring "Yeah …Okay … Be right there," and she flicked it shut again.

"Got to go," she said. "Boss is in the building, have to go and brief him." And she picked up her things and left.

"How come you never told me you had a sister? Afraid I'd like her better than you?" he teased.

"You wish," she replied. "Believe me if I had know that you would actually have an interest in her, I'd have acquainted both of you earlier, just so I could get a bit of peace from you."

"Don't fear Cuddy my dear, you shall always be my favourite," he said this as he looked at her with those puppy eyes that just got to her, she smiled. "I mean, how many deans of medicine dress like you do, you're so considerate of the opposite gender's visual pleasure," he added. Her smile faded away, leaving a look of disapproval on her face.

She should have know, a nice thing said by Gregory House was only the Horse of Troy of an inappropriate comment that was about to follow.

Her attitude brought an amused grin to his lips. She had fallen for it … again.

"So did you get very far? Diagnostic wise?" Lisa asked again. "Genius lost his talent?"

"As a matter of fact, I was really getting somewhere before you came in to distract me with your cleavage and your rotund ass," he replied.

She gave him a long stern look; he looked back at her straight into her eyes. This surprised her, she wasn't used to House seeking and keeping a connection with another being. She didn't dare sever whatever tie was pulling them together. It felt like they were playing a game, a very primal one, and the first to look elsewhere first was the loser.

This moment of intimacy was interrupted by this pompous looking man who walked into the room uninvited, he was closely followed by Alex: this must be the big boss, House thought.

The man was blond, painfully thin and short, but despite his small size you could tell straight away, by his attitude, that he looked down on everyone, he had an aura of snobbiness surrounding him.

"Dr. Ford, this is Lisa Cuddy, dean of medicine here in Princeton Plainsboro, and this is Dr. House, very …" Alex said.

"I know Dr. House," Ford cut in. "His reputation precedes him." The tone he had used implied that he already had a very negative opinion about Gregory House.

"Dr. House, Dr Cuddy, this is Dr Ford head doctor at the CDC," Alex continued her presentations.

"Alex gave me a summary of the situation," he added. "I would have thought these sorts of cases would have been pieces of cake for a diagnostician such as Dr. House."

A mixture of annoyance and anger piled up inside Gregory House, this undersized leprechaun was trying to push him to and beyond his explosion point.

"No need for you to lose any more sleep about it though," the little man kept on talking. "I'm in charge now, and you're officially off the case."

"What?" both the dean and House said simultaneously.

"But he's the best --" Lisa Cuddy said.

"He's my patient --" House began.

"Not important," Ford said calmly. "You both have been exposed to the contagion, you're going to quarantine. Actually it was quite stupid of Alex not to do it earlier. Don't worry I'll save this hospital," he said cockily. "Alex please escort Dr. Cuddy and Dr House to the quarantine room Terence set up on the first floor."

Lisa Cuddy was not happy; the control of her hospital was being snatched away from her. Gregory House was not happy; his case was being taken away from him.


End file.
